@JenniMoyer:

1. You can always talk with a supervisor at Comcast.
-Funny, when I worked for that company i recall 45 minute waits for the escalation que not being uncommon, and a short lived policy that mandated "supervisor" *cough cough* callbacks the next day, or maybe the day after that.

2. All agents, regardless of location, log into the same phone system and can make outbound calls and transfer calls.

-Except for Winnipeg, St.jhons, and the (now defunct and closed) lethbridge centers. Official policy is no outbound calls, not even for troubleshooting purposes without Project Operation Manager say-so. (Which doesn't happen) Its a FIREING offence (playing with the phones ruines it for everyone kiddies) Oh yes, and the newer groups in the Philippines that currently handle the "chat to comcast" volumes and *soon* some of the HSI/CDV call volume, well lets not talk about that.

We're also able to identify all agents including, at-home agents, by their unique ID numbers logged into your account history so we can follow-up with an agent, even if you didn't get his or her information.

-assumeing they note the account or the ticketing system. None of the core worktool automatically log agent contact when they access an account.

I also wanted to let you know that our agents receive ongoing training, and we regularly review and update training programs.

-bully for you. Now can you stop hireing highschool drop outs and prehaps do something about the one month average turn over for staff both "comcast" and outsourced?

As a direct next step, we are reaching out to our outsource partners to make sure their employees are getting the training they need. Thanks.

- So eventually the CASPER knowledgebase will included some information about the comast IM program? how about screen shots that arn't from the 2001 versions of the web sites? prehaps it might be an idea to spend less time training the agents on how to upsell products, and more time teaching them how to fix basic conductivity problems? It IS supposed to be a line for technical support and not sales offers correct?

Bite me "jenni".
If people wanted someone to piss down their backs and tell them its raining there is a wide wonderful internet to find that kind of thing . . . . unless you have comcast as your ISP.

I handle billing inquiries, payments, changes of services and downgrades as well as troubleshooting (Though unfortunately I don't get paid nearly as much as say, an AT&T rep).

I work at a Florida call center and at least on our end we're trying to improve the quality. Though admittedly it's an upward battle. I'll tell you right off the bat what a rep in general can't do:

1) We cannot contact techs. We only know techs by their Tech number and we have no personal information on the tech such as their cell. We have to contact dispatch that contacts them.

2) On the same token, we do NOT know if there is a tech in your area. If you have an appointment, we can only see the appointment list of the tech that's been scheduled out to you.

3) Unless you've called to report a problem with your service or there is a history of outages in the -area-, we do NOT know if you've had continuing problems with your service. You'd be surprised how often I've had customers call and said their services have been crap for three months but have never called to report it. Simply put: You don't report it, you don't get credit.

And honestly, customers can make the most helpful rep not so helpful by the following:

1) Yelling at the rep before they can get a word out
2) Cursing at the rep. Yes, I totally understand that you have had your problems and I love to help people get things resolved, but if you're cursing at me because another rep pissed you off and won't give me the opportunity to help, then the conversation is just going south.

At least at the call center I'm working at, we've been taking a few steps to improve such as surveys where customers that are unhappy with some aspect of comcast are called back by 24-48 hours (normally the same day though) by a supervisor to see what's going on and to assist, problem representatives are being monitored and coached. Also we've been taught up and down by management about informing customers about the length of promos and the normal rates so they won't be surprised in the end.

Like I said, you're going to unfortunately get some bad reps and I'm certainly not the sponsor person for Comcast (I've seen some real shady crap by reps done to customers and most of those people have been fired), but there are a few silver linings in the company

I was hoping the word 'practically' would kinda give me a get outta jail free card for the loose interpretation of kicked out, but you're definitely right about that.

Every time I receive a call from an irate customer, its because the last reps have either placed them on hold forever, or have hung up on them or have not resolved the issue.
It is NOT the customer's fault that their account has been screwed up, its been passed employees in said account.
The customer is not angry at YOU personally, they are angry at YOU as in company because of past reps.
Can you blame them? They're angry, and get another rep hanging up on them. Its not fair to them, and I dont blame most of the angry posts in here.
It is our job as Customer Service Reps, to resolve the issue and make sure that its not on-going. If the customer has an issue, it is our job to resolve it right, the first time. Not the 5th or 10th time they've called.

This is the same way you would treat a customer, with kindness and respect, as you would in any call center. Customer's got you down? Maybe you should stay out of the Customer Support jobs.

( And yes, you can do payment arrangements, you would know that if you had checked your matrix, "Jane")

They were generally responsive and one time a guy spent 30 minutes trying to clear up an administrative issue with me. Then when he couldn't do it he researched an answer and gave me a timely call back. It was really about all I could have expected from any customer service rep. During the call, he put me on hold while he called around to different departments to ask instead of just just transferring my call to them to get rid of a tough question. I was very impressed

So to all of the CSR's and CSM's out there that try to blame THEIR behavior on company policy; it ain't going to work. The company may NOT care about customer service but most of the CSR's that I have spoken to are just plain nasty.

This is Jenni with Comcast following up. I've read "Jane Doe's" comments and wanted to clarify some things:

1. You can always talk with a supervisor at Comcast.
Each call center has a dedicated supervisor's line, so if you ask to speak with a supervisor, both at-home agents and agents in our call centers are able to connect you. There may be times - for example, the supervisor is on another call - that we may need to call you back.

2. All agents, regardless of location, log into the same phone system and can make outbound calls and transfer calls.
For at-home agents like "Jane Doe," there are transfer numbers back to local markets and that information is available to those agents. We give customers 1-800-COMCAST as a callback number so that you can always speak with someone, even if the original agent you spoke with isn't working at that time. We're also able to identify all agents including, at-home agents, by their unique ID numbers logged into your account history so we can follow-up with an agent, even if you didn't get his or her information.

3. We're addressing some of the unique situations for agents who work remotely.
The IM system "Jane" references is designed to connect agents in real-time with someone who can help them with a question or issue. Also, because they're working from home, there's no on-site IT support like there is at a call center, which is why we have a dedicated department and contact process for work at home agents if they experience technical issues.

I also wanted to let you know that our agents receive ongoing training, and we regularly review and update training programs. As a direct next step, we are reaching out to our outsource partners to make sure their employees are getting the training they need. Thanks.

You are wrong. You work for Comcast, not Cloud10. The OP was talking about Cloud10.

1. In many markets, Cloud10 agents can downgrade, in others they have to transfer to retention. The problem is that sometimes retention is busy and tells the agent to have the customer call back. Some customers don't want to call back.

2. Cloud10 reps use the avaya softphone system. They cannot call out because when they dial a local #, they need to enter a LD (Long Distance) code - which is not provided to them. They can only dial extension #'s that forwards their call to different depts. Cloud10 reps DO NOT have extension numbers that customers can use to call them directly.

3. The training for Cloud10 Comcast reps is the same, 2 weeks training, 2 weeks nesting. But it's still very spotty.

4. Supervisors at Cloud10 cannot make payment arrangements. Also Cloud10 agents are told that in markets such as MI, not even collections cna do payment arrangements.

5. EMTAs do have battery backups - no disagreement there.

You clearly have no idea how Cloud10 works. Enjoy working for Comcast - you get benefits that Cloud10 agents do not get.

@Rachacha:
If you have a vindictive ex-husband/ex-wife who knows your name, address and phone number (but not your SS#), would you want us to allow that person to access your email account, reset your modem without your knowledge, or maybe send an INT to your DVR thus deleting all your recorded DVR programs?

You can put a password on your account instead of using your social security number for your security question.

I do not speak here in any official capacity. I post because it interests me. Call me a shill if you will, but you are quite mistaken. And yes, I am aware that some people hate Comcast.

What I wonder is why people have Comcast at all if they hate us so much? Why torture yourself if you hate it? I can only guess you love to hate us so much you cannot give us up. Or something.

To add or delete features, process upgrades, whatever, you must be added as an authorized user either by having the billing name call into Care or bring him / her into the store to add you.

Only the billing name can add or remove lines, no matter what. I don't care that you have their SSN, if you are not the billing name, you cannot do it.

End

We're talking about the phone working during a power outage. Plug a wired phone into the EMTA, and you get a dial tone.

One service being out does not necessarily affect the other two.

One word.. Directv

I don't like AT&T or Verizon either.. but sounds like they are less evil compared to Comcast.

@LadySiren:
If the fist off when you say cable...that is semi incorrect, as ALL of the services are cable. The three products offered are video, internet and phone, that go through cable.

yes, internet can stop, and phone can still workas the majority of the time, it is simply a signal to noise ratio in the internet that needs to be adjusted. People quite often have TV that works while phone/internet do not.

second, the battery is there incase POWER and only the POWER goes out, much like at&t phone do not rely soley on the eletric company.

Us consumers have always complained about the call wait times so this is the result. Personally, I would rather wait an hour on hold and get a competent employee. But I guess I'm in the minority?

The real problem? How do we get back to the quality?

@sleze69: I hear you. But if you're a professional, you do your best job for everyone. Period.

@Morac: My experience may have been atypical, but my price went up after month 9 of my 2 year contract. After an EECB they reset my contract for another 2 years at the original price.

@downwithmonstercable:
Verizon is eeeevil... I had problems with my land line, and I could not get them to send a tech to save my life. Verizon scheduled but did not send a tech for half a dozen appointments (literally!). There is a limit to the number of vacation days I'm willing to burn waiting for phantom repair guys. I gave up on Verizon, had Comcast digital voice installed, and it's been smooth sailing for about a year and a half so far.

Admittedly, the Comcast guy who did the installation was kind of an idiot, but they sent a competent tech to fix everything the next day.

My internet went out on Sunday night for a few hours, I asked around and it turned out it was for the upcoming DOCSIS 3.0 upgrade that's coming soon. Gotta love the "we're going to give you super fast internet and with that a bandwidth cap!" mentality.

Caveat: I DO NOT use their cable TV services. Mostly because I loathe television.

I live in an unincorporated portion of Snohomish County. There are no other high-speed internet options out here worth talking about past satellite.

I got their high speed internet cable service about four years ago. What they sold me was claimed to be 4 megabits down. I've clocked it at better than 9 megabits on several occasions. The best time for this is during a really BIG download (like an operating system ISO: Knoppix or an Opensuse DVD).

Seven or eight months ago, I got a call from a Comcast salesman offering an upgrade to 16 megabits down. This has clocked to better than 18 megabits on at least one occasion.

Outages have been few and far between. The few times I had to push a service call all the way through to a human, I got somebody with a clue at the other end of the line.

I must be living in an alternate dimension or something.

One thing I must add, though. The router they supplied at time of purchase was a complete POS. I went out and popped for a Motorola SB5120. This made an incredible amount of difference in the QoS.

Nice try, company shill. Good to see that Comcast is finally taking notice of the universal hate for their company and products on Consumerist.

Would you rather they:

A) Don't care,
B) Don't care AND are a scumbag drug addict who would sooner steal your personal information than help you with the problem, or
C) Want to help, but are bogged down in corporate apathy, mission statements, call time goals, and sales?

Personally, I'm going with option 3.

Yeah, I'm not sure where these people are getting all these problems. 2 year contracts? I've never been under contract; all of my stuff is month-to-month.

As far as service is concerned, Comcast is top notch here in Nashville. It was the only thing available until U-Verse rolled in to town (besides Dish, of course), but U-Verse isn't available everywhere yet. In fact, right now it is only available in the much higher priced property value neighborhoods.

Comcast's customer service department here is local, and I've even talked with reps that went to high school down the road from me. They're always friendly, always courteous, always up-front with any kind of outages that are happening, and they have always helped me. Service calls are completed on-time, and even though the work is sometimes done by contractors, I've never had any problems with their attitude or willingness to help. They've even replaced connectors in our apartment complex that were installed before we moved in and that our complex's maintenance staff painted over.

Sure, I hate getting the postcards in the mail from Comcast that are offering new services that are only available to new subscribers, but if I call and ask, there are sometimes specials that they can give to me as an existing customer. Maybe everyone else's Comcast offices should learn from Nashville.

I recently cancelled 2 DirecTv accounts for poor service and they tried to charge the card I initially used to start up service. One charge was for 340.00 for a termination fee. They just charged the card without asking. I disputed it and it was reversed. I see in their reply to the BBB that they are now sending it out to collection. This billing your card after you cancel is absolutely common. Loads of complaints about DirecTv on http://badbusinessbureau.com most same issue, charging your card or bank account via debit card when you tell them to screw off.

Of course this isn't Comcast but the point is that they all suck in some manner. I've been stood up by no show Comcast installers and in the past have canceled them also.

@TaterTom:

Great story, but you've completely misunderstood the situation. ATTBB didn't get kicked out of the city at all; Comcast BOUGHT them.

@Suulia: If the internet/cable goes out, how is a battery going to help?

@vastrightwing: There's a word for the reason.

M O N O P O L Y

@Gokuhouse: The customer isn't always right. I've worked both retail AND telephone tech support and he is right.

Sometimes you just aren't empowered to help and sometimes the know-it-all doctor/lawyer/housefrau on the other end of the line is so irritating that you won't go out of your way to help.

This is Jenni from Comcast. Just wanted to let everyone know we're looking into this. More to come......

If I owe you a dollar I borrowed from you last week, asking for it four times a day will likely get it to you much later, and at the cost of some respect.

That's like saying you should not use a landline phone because if the phone cable gets knocked out, you lose phone service.

Also, the eMTA devices that handle phone all have batteries for power outages, but if your phone requires a power source, you are just as out of luck as if you used a traditional phone system.

"Please don't get an attitude with me if I ask for the last 4 digits of your social security number for verification/security."
Fine, if I am making a change that will impact my monthly subscription, however (and this in not just a Comcast issue) if I am calling to inquire about my current balance, a special offer that I saw, or having a technical problem with my service, why do you need to verify this information. If I call up and say that my cable is out, or my internet service is slow and request a simple diagnostic check/reset of the cable box, and I provide you with some basic account information (name/address or phone number) why do you need to verify my SSN, mother's maiden name, first born child and blood type?

She first tried to sell me on downgrading my service ... that's not what I called about ... then said she'd have to talk to a supervisor about it and would have someone call me back.

No one ever called me back.

The moral? I now have Internet service that's essentially free and just as fast for the next six months (they gave me an even better deal when I called), and I may not even bother to go back to Comcast when it comes time to play the next round of the lower-my-rate game if that's how they feel about me as a customer.

Crapping on people has its consequences.

1. "I would love to be able to downgrade your account and help you save money." There is a whole department that handles that, it's called "Retention" and everyone who asks to downgrade should be sent there. They often have the best deals available in the company.

2. "We cannot call out." All home reps can receive calls and call out since they log into the same system that the agents in the call centers use. All reps have extensions, and all you have to do to get a specific rep is ask for their extension number, and you will be transferred to them.

3. "The training we got was pretty spotty." A refresher course is 2 weeks, the initial training is 4 weeks (with 2 weeks nesting).

4. "Recently we were told that we can no longer do any type of payment arrangements." Supervisors and Collections can indeed and often do make payment arrangements.

5. "If the power, Internet, or cable go out so does your phone." All EMTAs (phone modems) have batteries which allow you 4 hours of talk time and 8 hours standby if you have a power outage.

I could go on poking holes in this "article" but really, it's absurd.

Disclaimer: I am not a company spokesperson for Comcast and these opinions are my own.

just something to keep in mind.

1) Point.
2) My internet service has been fast, reliable, and unblocked.
3) Haven't had much of a problem.
4) Don't really care.
5) Haven't had a problem.
6) Haven't had a problem.
7) Again, point.
8) Yes ... but how does relate to choosing Comcast?
9) That's why I don't use digital voice.

Believe me, I'm no fan of Comcast. I think they charge a ridiculous amount of money for what they deliver, and it irks me to no end that I can't just order the five or six channels I actually want to watch rather than some stupid bundle. But honestly, I want a fast Internet connection and I occasionally like watching cable TV, so what are you going to do? It's not like they're NAZIs or something; they're just another annoying company. I'd rather fight my battles elsewhere.

@humphrmi: That's customer service in a nutshell. On one hand there's stated policy, and on the other hand there's real policy. I work for an internet marketing company. You can piss me off and I will stand by "the customer is responsible for return shipping." Or you can try to be reasonable and polite and I can arrange a return shipping label for you, even though nothing states we have to supply it. In fact, my boss would rather we NOT supply it.

Customers need to remember their service reps are not robots. If you abuse us though, we'll be more than happy to turn into corporate drones that spout policy and refuse to cave to your demands.

Why on earth ANYONE is a Comcast customer amazes me!
1) High prices
2) Dubious Internet speeds. Blocked traffic. Unreliable, etc.
3) Customer service? Need I say more?
4) Mid Def TV passed off as High Def.
5) Long waits to get a service person over.
6) Bad installations.
7) Did I mention the high cost?
8) Internet and cable are luxury items. Sorry!
9) Verizon or cell phones are much better than CDV!

All I can say is it's sad when consumers put up with this B.S. and Comcast is still in business.

Great to hear that. I would hire you to manage my support team in a heartbeat.

Many years ago the transition from customer service to "quota-based service" happened. It was supposed to introduce efficiencies into the system, but lead to tickets being opened and closed and reopen. People got more frustrated than ever.
The irony is that these systems continue to cost companies more money every year and do not contribute to any reduction in operational costs.
Regarding Jane Doe's letter... if it makes her feel any better to get the frustration and anger out of her system, great... but she should also learn to be firm with customers who may be misinformed and explain alternatives.

@Starfury:

That's what I was thinking. Who goes into collections for cable TV? If you can't afford it, don't have it! That's like people living in public housing but having 50 inch plasma TVs. It makes no sense to me.

My only gripe is their bandwidth throttling of P2P but that's to be expected these days.

My Verizon service at a former workplace was a nightmare... constant outages and the techs would never show up, if they did show up they didn't fix any problems.. even if they claimed they did. Constant headache. Hopefully their service with FIOS is better than their DSL service.

I gave up call center management because overall, those places are not customer focused enough for me, but before I quit, I dedicated my final 6 months solely to customers and their needs. At that point, numbers meant absolutely nothing to me and I had nothing to lose anyway. I let my employees in on my plan and they were psyched and more motivated than ever. They could assist customers until their issues were fully resolved and not worry about call handle time. Customer satisfaction statistics skyrocketed, I had the happiest team in the building and everyone wanted to know how I did it. By the time that the figured out that I did it as the expense of their coveted metrics, I was long gone!

@humphrmi: @humphrmi: They state in the letter that they are a customer support person working from home, hired through an outsourced company. They are most certainly a low level employee but they are giving you a bit of advice so you can avoid getting upset over things they cannot control.

Having to deal with Comcast is enough to turn Ghandi into an asshole customer.

I am thinking of downgrading services but I'm wondering how much of a fight that's going to be with Comcast.

@JakeChance84: I think it was a woman who wrote in, but never mind. I still agree with you.

That made my day... well that and the MacBook Wheel
www.theonion.com

Thanks!

As far as the outsourced people go, I'm really not sure how they do their job. They often seem to not have any way of calling in or getting someone on the phone to check on a tech or get someone to look at a problem that's being ignored.

Personally, I've had all of their services since I started working there (employees get some nice discounts and I've mostly kept them since leaving) and I've never had a problem with their service, not even their phone service. I think this may be a case of this guy listening to complaints and reports of problems all day (no-one calls in when everything's fine after all)...that tends to skew your impressions of the product. YMMV.

Good advice about asking about prices when the promos come off though. Get all of that info right up front when you're talking to the sales person. And make sure you understand if they're quoting a promotional price or an "everyday" one. Sales people lie (what else is new?)

Now, Comcast won't let them do anything, and when you try to call the local number it re-routes to the corporate line (probably to the OP). The corporate reps know nothing about our area, are rude, lie and do whatever they can to get you to drop their cable service. I went down to pay a bill and the ladies there hate it - regular customers yell at them because a Comcast rep was rude (some folks don't realize that the local number doesn't connect them to local help), and all of them are looking for other jobs.

It's really sad to see people who actually *liked* their cable company (how rare is that?) grow to hate it so much.

Comcast is horrible and a total waste of money - we only use their internet service now and went satellite for tv (not that they're much better).

However, this sort of structure is unacceptable and I'm glad this guy wrote in to tell us about it. Since inefficiency usually doesn't save money, all this compartmentalization and outsourcing must be done to keeps Comcast's costs down (something they'd never pass on to us). How can we ever expect good service if this is how their support is internally structured. If only we could get TV over IP or in someway break up this oligopoly of telecos and cable giants.

Remember that cable TV is not a necessity, it's a luxury. If you can't afford it then go without.

Having worked customer service for the local garbage company (shudder) and you'd be surprised how many people got pissed when we'd not pick up the garbage because they were 90 days late on their bill.

Overall customer service work sucks; but it sounds like Comcast is one of the suckier places to work.

Am I seriously the only person that likes comcast? I have had zero problems with them. They are a wet dream compared to Verizon.

"I already can't do much for you, but don't piss me off! Or, I won't do anything for you!"

There is no advice anyone can give for dealing with Comcast except this: Get services that they provide from someone else.

No exceptions.

If you live in a Comcast only area... consider suicide. (Or you could move, but that is much more painful than suicide.)

Sermon?

Admitting it is the first step toward correction. When are you going to admit that some of your contractors do this, Comcast corporate?

more and more reasons for me to avoid this blight on the earth.